Mission & Goals
The Localized History Project, housed at the Asian American/Asian Research Institute@CUNY, is a youth-led and community-driven participatory history collective working to uplift working-class, solidarity-oriented, and peoples’ histories of Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian New Yorkers. We are funded via City Council’s Educational Equity Action Plan to help produce New York City’s first ever Asian American Studies program!
Our Commitments
The Localized History Project ethos is grounded in a love for inclusivity and community. It centers young people as pedagogues and as agents of transformative change. We define localized history as histories drawn from archives—both traditional and intimate, family oral histories, and the memories of our neighborhoods, friends, and elders.
Specifically, by learning histories relevant to students’ neighborhoods, families, and identities, we are encouraged to challenge oppressive systems and build equitable ones that better serve us all. Localized history challenges us to be more connected to each other, and encourages us to participate in the world around us.
More than ever, we need to learn localized Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander history. As ethnic studies remains under attack, implementing local Asian-American Pacific Islander studies into New York City classrooms is essential. However, we do not believe in teaching a version of AAPI Studies that pits us against other communities of color or working-class New Yorkers. Thankfully, AAPI history has always been that of labor organizing, solidarity-building, and collectivity. Be it the 1998 Taxi Workers’ Strike, exchanges between B.R. Ambedkar and W.E.B. Du Bois, the Chinatown Art Brigade, the labor of Filipino nurses and Vietnamese nail salon workers, or the musical beats of Richmond Hill’s Indo-Caribbean communities, we’ve continued to make waves of influence locally and within broader global lineages of resilience.
New York City is a historic site of critical AAPI history, and we want this history taught in our schools. Uplifting these struggles for justice provides all of us with models for collective liberation. Moreover, illuminating the vibrant contributions of AAPIs combats notions of otherness and the omission of marginalized narratives.
The AAPI community has and will continue to be a powerful force in our nation and city. We hope you will join us in honoring our stories by bringing our youth-driven, community-led histories to life in your classrooms.
Guiding Pillars
Localized New York City History How does this project uplift the local stories of our neighbors, elders, and communities? How does it center the unique and underrepresented histories of NYC’s AAPI community?
Cross-Racial and Transnational Solidarity How does this project uplift and incorporate moments of transnational and cross-racial solidarity across AAPIs and other communities?
Counter-Stories and Memorywork How does this project uplift history through the lens of community, intimate, and family histories, and/or how does it counter pervasive stereotypes, omissions, or narrative erasure?
Resistance, Organizing and Community How does this project uplift stories of resistance, organizing, and community building? How does this project center peoples’ or movement history?
Joy, Celebration, Achievements How does this project center joy and celebration, or the achievements of the AAPI community?
About the Staff
Meet the Leadership Team
Shreya Sunderram (Director)
Shreya is the director of the Localized History Project, and is a PhD Candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center in the Urban Education program. Her research studies the ways in which the history classroom and other sites of knowledge production uphold colonial violence, and how youth resistance and worldbuilding is central to the creation of truthful and just learning spaces. Shreya has lived and taught in New York City for a decade. She loves reading fantasy and sci-fi books, and dog-watching in prospect park.
Ravi Vora and Clarissa Kunizaki (Co-Youth Directors)
Ravi is a high school senior and has been a member of LHP for over a year. He enjoys collaborating with fellow researchers and learning about AAPI political movements. As Youth Co-Director of Policy Research & Advocacy, he looks forward to working alongside policymakers and teachers to ensure that the archival projects are taught effectively and critically.
Clarissa is a high school senior and has been part of LHP since its inception. She enjoys researching local histories centering AAPI diasporic identity and cross racial solidarity. As Youth Co-Director of Community and Historical Research, she hopes to foster joy and exploration with fellow youth and community members to uncover radical histories.
Eva Schmidt (AD, Youth Programming)
Eva is LHP's Assistant Director of Youth Programming. Entering her third year with the Localized History project and is excited to continue to find ways to amplify histories of AANHPI communities and peoples with our youth researchers and to see real change implemented into classrooms. Relocated from the Sonoran Desert, she is a CUNY alum and is involved in the dance and theatre community here in NYC!
Ana Serna (AD, Community Organizing)
Ana is LHP's Assistant Director of Community Organizing. Hailing from Long Island, Ana is a labor organizer and community archivist who is passionate about activist storytelling – especially in the Filipino diaspora. She loves learning about social movements (especially through oral history!), tending to her houseplants, and working on fiber arts projects.
Josie Naron (Archivist and Historian)
Josie is LHP's Archivist and Historian. She received her MA from NYU's Archives and Public History program. Her work is interdisciplinary and draws on oral history and public history, often focusing on the intersections of social movements and the arts. Josie is a transplanted Midwesterner who has called Brooklyn home for almost 8 years. In her spare time, she loves watching the Mets (mostly lose), caring for her adopted alley cat, and making zines.
Our Research
Localized Histories and Pedagogical Revolutions: Youth-Driven Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander History Curriculum in New York State
The Localized History Project is a youth participatory action research project that investigates to what extent AANHPI history is taught in K‑12 history classrooms in NY State. This article, jointly written by 12 youth and two adult researchers, presents initial findings about the state of AANHPI curriculum in NY as determined through Youth Action Boards, surveys, interviews, and field‑notes. The article concludes by sharing examples of, if youth‑driven, localized, and critical, what an AANHPI archive and curriculum could look like. Findings confirm what literature has shown, that AANHPI history is largely invisabalized and omitted from curriculum, and that the impact of this on young people is deflating, but also, spurs a desire to change the education system. The Localized History Project is ongoing, and updates about our work and research can be found by following @LocalizedHistory.
Constellations and Collectivity: Youth Storytelling as Re-Rooting Methodology
In this collectively-written autoethnographic piece by youth and adult allies from The Localized History Project—a youth-driven participatory action research project advocating for the inclusion of radical, solidarity oriented and movement driven Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history—we share and analyze the experiences of our youth during a three day Storytelling Retreat. We frame the storytelling as a “re-rooting” methodology, by which AANHPI youth are able to anchor themselves in histories of resistance, solidarity, and liberation. Through an analysis of photographs, written reflections, and survey collection, we share the following reflections: Firstly, storytelling is a “re-rooting” process as AANHPI youth were able to anchor themselves in histories of resistance, solidarity, and liberation. Secondly, storytelling is a form of a living archive, by which we move from individual stories to a broader sense of collectivity. Finally, we find that storytelling as a practice helps us deepen our commitments to collective liberation both within and beyond our community.